


This Tired White Flag

by Elthadriel



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, M/M, Post-Canon, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 17:37:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10724043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elthadriel/pseuds/Elthadriel
Summary: He doesn't remember how to exist as anyone other than Captain Flint.





	This Tired White Flag

**Author's Note:**

> I promised myself I wasn't going to get sucked into this fandom, but here we are. Everyone and their mother has written their interpretation of how this goes down, but I guess I felt we needed one more. 
> 
> Title from Sleeping At Last's "Neptune."

Flint felt stripped raw, like a layer of skin had been flayed from his back. His shirt pricked at his skin and Thomas hands burned where they touched him, too much, too intense.

It hurt but he couldn't pull away.

Thomas kissed him and it took him too long to remember how to kiss back. God, when was the last time he had kissed anyone? When was the last time he has even wanted to? Thomas pulled back, hands cupping his face beaming at him through watering eyes.

"James," Thomas said, with the same reverence that had made Flint so uncomfortable a decade ago. He wasn't ashamed anymore, but it caused his gut to twist just the same. He couldn't bear the way Thomas was looking at him. He couldn’t bear to look away. “James,” Thomas said again, caressing Flint’s cheek with his thumb. “It’s all right, we’re going to be all right.” 

“You can’t know that,” Flint managed, horrified out how thick the word where in his mouth. He thought he might vomit, or cry, and he didn’t know which was worse. He didn’t remember how to exist with Thomas holding him. 

“We’ll make it all right. I swear, Love.” 

Flint sobbed, throwing himself back into Thomas’ embrace again, burying his face into Thomas’s shoulder, gripping the back of his shirt.

Thomas was speaking softly, soothingly, but Flint couldn’t make out the words. Everything was too much. His whole body ached with an pain he couldn’t locate the cause of, and there was an itch under his skin that he couldn’t shake, worse where he was touching Thomas. His soul was filthy with sin, and he hated to think that he could somehow infect Thomas with it. 

He shouldn’t have come here, he should have told Silver to take his offer and choke on it. He couldn’t deserve Thomas after everything he’d done. 

“James, we should go somewhere private.” Thomas was prying himself out of Flint’s grip, but only enough to move back to look at him again. He was still holding Flint at his waist and shoulder. “Get you out of those clothes.”

Flint laughed, surprising himself with the noise. “Awfully forward of you, my Lord.” 

Thomas was smiling again, though there was still concern in his gaze. “I think you’ll find that I’m not a lord anymore. My days of hard labour have turned me into quite the scoundrel. Besides, I only meant that you’re filthy, some clean clothes will go a long way.”

For a terrible moment, when Thomas smiled at him like that, Flint was sure he was dreaming. Only, his dreams were never so kind, though neither was his reality. 

He allowed Thomas to lead from him the field, the guards watched them, but made no move to stop them. 

It was cooler in the shade of the barracks, though not by much, the still air thick and oppressive. Flint was never going to miss the sea, he refused to, but at least out in open water the wind provided some relief from the blistering Caribbean sun. Thomas had an arm around his shoulders, and Flint was aware that with each step he was leaning more and more of his weight onto him. He had been awake for what felt like days, might actually have been days, and he was sure that if Thomas was to step away he would fall to his knees and be unable to stand again. 

“Almost there,” Thomas murmured, adjusting his arm to take even more of Flint’s weight. Thomas was stronger than he had been, Flint could feel the muscles in his arms and could see the new broadness to his shoulders.

They finally stepped into a long room with a dozen beds lines up against one wall. It was dim, with only small windows to allow a breeze, but Flint was used to living below the deck of a ship, and the low light barely registered. Thomas pushed him so he was sitting on one of the hard narrow beds, squeezing his shoulders before leaving him sitting there. 

“I’m going to get some water,” Thomas said over his shoulder.

Flint expected to panic when Thomas was out of his line of sight, that his brain would insist that it was just an extended hallucination, and that the pressure had finally gotten to him, and his mind had shattered. Instead the momentary solitude was refreshing, and he breathed deeply, rubbing at his face with his cuff. 

Thomas was right, he was filthy, and his shirt was covered in dirt and dried blood. 

He fumbled with his collar, pulling it off over his head. His fingers felt thick and clumsy. He dropped the shirt onto the floor and reached for his boots, with less success. The laces were too fiddly and his fingers just wouldn’t obey. He swore, distress rising in his throat. 

Thomas knelt down in front of him, placing a basin of water down beside him and knocking Flint’s hands out of the way. He easily unlaced Flint’s boots, pulling them off and setting them to the side. 

“Breath, James, I’ve got you.” Thomas pressed the cloth against Flint’s chest, the water ran down his skin in cool streams, leaving a worrying contrast of clean skin against the built up dirt. He wanted to reach out and touch Thomas, but his hands couldn’t respond, and they sat in near silence as Thomas cleaned him.

“I fantasised about this,” Flint said, looking down at his hands. “During my more disparaging moments. That you were somehow alive, and I would storm London and break you out Bedlam. In that version of events, I was always the one comforting you.”

The water sloshed as Thomas returned the cloth to the bowl and then his hands where back, taking Flint’s. He ran his fingers, over Flint’s bloody knuckles; Flint couldn’t even remember what he had punched to damage them in the first place. 

“If you had found me right out of Bedlam, that would have been the case. I wasn’t myself when I left that place.” Thomas sounded tired, and Flint wished he could comfort him, wished he would pull together the shreds of himself enough to know what to do. “But I’ve had time to heal, your trauma is fresher.”

Trauma? Was that what this was? It seemed like such a detached term for what they had gone through. God, Flint couldn’t remember ever feeling this old. 

Thomas picked up the cloth again, wringing it out into the basin.

Flint tried to view it symbolically, as if Thomas was washing the filth from his soul and not just his skin. The water muddied and Flint felt as sinful as ever.

“Did Peter know you were here?” He asked, the question coming to the forefront of his mind suddenly. 

Thomas’s hand tightened on the cloth, and his hand froze. “Yes.”

Flint’s anger flared and then settled just as quickly; he didn’t have any rage left to spend on Peter Ashe.

“You know what his role in all this was?” Flint didn’t know what he hoped to gain from the train of questioning, but he couldn’t abandon it.

“Yes.” Thomas returned to his careful cleaning. Some of the discomfort on his skin was fading as the layer of dirt was removed, but there was still a phantom itch under his skin.

“He killed Miranda,” Flint said. He had so many awful things to tell Thomas about, and part of him wanted to put them off, wait until had more time with Thomas. He didn’t know if Thomas would ever look at him as softly again after he knew who Flint had become, and he was selfish enough to want to put that off as long as possible. 

But Miranda wasn’t just his secret to withhold

“Bastard,” Thomas snarled, with more venom than Flint had ever heard from him.

Flint looked up sharply, gaping probably rather foolishly. 

“Say what you will of Bedlam, but it does wonders for expanding one’s vocabulary,” Thomas said with a shrug.

Flint snorted, mouth twisting into a grin. It wasn’t funny, not really, but the alternative to finding it funny was too awful to consider. 

“I missed your smile.” Thomas’s fingers brushed the edge of Flint’s mouth. “You’re so handsome.”

“Thomas.”

“I never thought I’d see you again,” Thomas said, voice cracking. He gripped Flint’s shoulder, tightly enough that it hurt. Again Flint wished he knew how to comfort Thomas. Not knowing else to do, he kissed him.

It was messy and uncoordinated, Thomas’s beard scratched against Flint’s face and their noses bumped as they tried to find the right angle. It was more than Flint ever thought he would ever have again.

“I never stopped thinking about you.” Flint whispered into the space between their mouths. “Everything I did, shit, Thomas, I tried so hard to make the world that you wanted.” 

Thomas’ lips were drier than Flint remembered, the heat leaving them cracked and rough. Flint couldn’t help but wonder what differences Thomas’ was noticing about him.

“I did awful things in your memory,” Flint said between kisses. He wished he would stop talking. He was getting too close to a truth that would end this moment between them. For just a second he wanted to enjoy this, enjoy holding Thomas, kissing him, having him. 

“Its fine, James, I understand. I can’t imagine what I might have been driven to if our roles had been reversed.” Thomas’ hands where running over the hair along the back of his head, somehow soothing and agitating all at the same time. Flint’s skin didn’t feel like it belonged to him.

“You don’t know what I-”

“Flint.”

He flinched, pulling back. He would have preferred that Thomas had struck him.

“How long have you known?” 

“I began to suspect after Charleston. That both my father and Peter had been killed by the same man seemed too much of a coincidence.” He sounded calm, and somehow that was worse than if he had screamed it at Flint. 

Thomas knew.

Thomas knew and there was no way anyone could forgive this.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out. What else could he say? 

“I wanted to contact you, but I had no idea how, and even if I had found a way, what was I to say? What does one say to an infamous pirate captain who you may or may not have fucked into a mattress on numerous occasions?”

Flint made a noise that was something between a laugh and a sob.

“There was something nice about thinking you were alive though, even if I couldn’t talk to you. I was scared about what I would do if I found out I was wrong.” Thomas took Flint’s hands again, and he found he wasn’t strong enough to pull them away again.

“I lost myself, Thomas.” 

“It’s all right.” Thomas rose up on his knees, pressing his forehead against James. “I’m here, we’ll work it out.”

“The things I’ve done, Thomas.” He closed his eyes, anything to avoid looking meeting Thomas’ gaze. His skin was itching again, and the urge to claw it off with his bare nails was rising. “There’s a reason they called Flint a monster.” 

“Please look at me,” Thomas whispered. There was an awful moment of silence before Flint managed to open his eyes again. He wanted to recoil under the intensity of Thomas’s gaze. No one had been able to make him feel so small since he had taken up the name Flint. “You aren’t beyond forgiveness, you can leave this behind you.”

“You can’t know that.” Flint gripped at Thomas’s hands. They were rougher than he remembered, more callused, but the size of them was familiar. He didn’t have an inch of skin those hands hadn’t touched and he knew them as intimately as he knew his own.

“I wanted to give pardons to ever pirate in Nassau; that includes Captain Flint.”

The tears that Flint had been struggling with since first allowing himself to hope that Thomas was alive finally spilled from his eyes, and he was torn between hiding his face from Thomas, ashamed to be seen so overcome, and wishing to accept the comfort Thomas would offer him.

“I don’t know how to exist as anyone other than Flint.” 

“We’ll figure it out together.” Thomas’s hands were still on Flint, holding him, comforting him. Flint couldn’t possibly deserve this, but he wanted it badly enough that he felt he would take it anyway. “I love you, I never stopped loving you. I will forgive your history.”

Flint wanted to believe that was possible.

“I’m not the same man I was either, and if you can accept me as simply Thomas, then you can also be James, with both McGraw and Flint in your history, but not in your present. We can define ourselves, our relationship, however we like.”

“Well, you certainly didn’t lose your love of a well-crafted argument.” Flint’s voice was thick with emotion. Maybe this could work? Maybe he could have this one thing. 

“And I doubt you are any less stubborn,” Thomas said, smiling. “We’ll find ourselves together, I promise, my love.”

He could do it for Thomas. He could return Flint to the sea. He could be James again.

James dropped his head to Thomas’ shoulder, breathing in the smell of him, the feel of him, refreshing faded memories. The stayed there for a long time, the water drying on James’ skin, Thomas’ arms warped around him, his face pressed against Thomas’s skin. For a moment, James felt at peace.

“James.”

James jerked upright, almost toppling over, and he blinked, dazed, staring dumbly at Thomas.

“You fell asleep, I think, for a moment there.” James had forgotten how fond Thomas sounded when he spoke to him, how could he have let that memory fade? “You need to rest, and I need to stand; I’m not a young man anymore, my knees can’t take it.”

James laughed, and it only sounded a little forced. Thomas stepped away only to return a second later, pressing a clean shirt and loose pair of trousers into James’ hands. 

“We’ll get you your own clothes soon enough, but until then you’ll have to content yourself with wearing mine.” Thomas stood close, on hand hovering over James’ shoulder, ready to steady him if required. 

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” James was mostly grateful that while getting to his feet was difficult, his body felt heavy and sluggish, he was able to redress himself.

Thomas smiled, the same, cheeky smile that James remembered do well, that one that had always managed to make him feel like a teenager with his first crush. It still gave him butterflies.

The bed was too small for two people, but neither considered an alternative. They shifted against each other, trying to make them both fit, until the settled almost entirely on top of Thomas. There was a strange comfort in knowing that no one would be able to remove Thomas from the bed without James knowing. 

Flint fought against sleep for only a moment longer. 

“I can get us out,” James said, voice muffled by Thomas’ chest. “Of here, this place.” 

“You have somewhere else in mind?” It was too warm to lie in each other’s arms like this, but James couldn’t think of a single that would convince him to move away.

“Somewhere safe, somewhere England can never touch us again.” He paused. “Away from the sea.”

“We’ll leave here, but not today. We have time, James, we have all the time in the world.” Thomas’s chest rumbled under James’ head. “You can rest now.” 

God, James was so glad to just rest.


End file.
